The juvenile justice system, founded on the idea that childhood is a distinct stage of life, is being dismantled, with more and more teenagers imprisoned alongside adults. The tough-on-crime crowd has won, but what kind of society has been left behind? JEFF Stackhouse, who turned 15 this Alexsummer, in the Madison Street Jail in StacPhoenix. was Photograph by Katy Grannan 3 years old, good luck entered his life for the first and maybe the last time. Abandoned as a 2-week-old infant by a schizophrenic mother, Jeff had lived by then in eight different foster homes. But in 1988, he was taken in by a woman who quickly made up her mind to love him and who adopted him two years later. The fact that Jeff came to her "with all his worldly possessions in one very small box" and called every adult female Mommy "not only broke but stole my heart," his adoptive mother, Leslie Stackhouse, says now. Leslie and her then husband, Norman, adopted two more "special needs" children, a girl named Christin and her brother, Casey, who had been taken away from abusive parents when they were toddlers. Leslie's training as a foster parent helped her to go slowly with all three, giving them time to trust her. Though Jeff was withdrawn at first, prone to banging his head against the wall and biting himself, he grew into a happy little boy with a powerful loyalty to his mother. [continues 8317 words]
From The Front Seat Of A Police Cruiser, Racial Profiling Is Not Racism. It's A Tool -- And Cops Have No Intention Of Giving It Up. Sgt. Mike Lewis of the Maryland State Police is a bull-necked, megaphone-voiced, highly caffeinated drug warrior who, on this shiny May morning outside of Annapolis, is conceding defeat. The drug war is over, the good guys have lost and he has been cast as a racist. "This is the end, buddy," he says. "I can read the writing on the wall." Lewis is driving his unmarked Crown Victoria down the fast lane of Route 50, looking for bad guys. The back of his neck is burnt by the sun, and he wears his hair flat and short under his regulation Stetson. "They're going to let the N.A.A.C.P. tell us how to do traffic stops," he says. "That's what's happening. [continues 3950 words]
No one teaches racial profiling. "Profiling," of course, is taught. It first came to the public's notice by way of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's behavioral-science unit, which developed the most famous criminal profile of all, one that did, in fact, have a racial component -- the profile of serial killers as predominantly white, male loners. It is the Drug Enforcement Administration, however, that is at the center of the racial-profiling controversy, accused of encouraging state law-enforcement officials to build profiles of drug couriers. [continues 4236 words]
